For 2017 Optometrist of the Year Alisdair Buchanan, being an optometrist is more than testing a patient’s eyes, there must be the ability to make a connection with them.
Listening to Buchanan talk about his patients, it is clear that this connection is there.
Hours before Optician sat down with Buchanan at his Kent practice, he had appeared on county radio to talk about the importance of drivers maintaining good eye health and the potential dangers for those who do not.
One of those who falls into the second camp is a patient who has been causing Buchanan concern for some time. While explaining to Optician that the practice had clearly set out to the patient that their vision fell below the minimum standard for driving, Buchanan had still wrestled with the decision to progress the matter with the AOP, as a long-standing patient could lose their independence. However, Buchanan is quick to point out that concern is always tempered with the thought of the danger the patient could pose to the public or even themselves.
‘It not about stopping people from driving, it’s enabling them to drive and maintain their independence,’ he says. ‘If there’s a way to keep them driving with regular eye tests then we should do it, because trying to stop someone from driving and taking away their independence is a horrendous thing to do.’
Another long-standing patient, Derek, seen by Buchanan from when he was very young, had become increasingly housebound suffering with cerebral palsy. Derek’s parents visited the practice one day because their son was under domiciliary care and was refusing to leave the house. Because Derek had to wear a mask for breathing, the only solution the domiciliary optician could find was to use swimming goggles, which horrified Buchanan.
Despite being just about to leave for an afternoon off, Buchanan visited the patient at his home and set about designing, soldering and glazing a much more aesthetically pleasing frame using a pair of modified clip ons. Derek’s parents were delighted.
Buchanan’s progression to Optometrist of the Year has included a number of hurdles and a fair share of financial risks. ‘I failed my A-levels miserably and didn’t know what to do with my life. I wanted to study medicine, but didn’t get the grades,’ he says.
A friend of a friend was a dispensing optician, so Buchanan went to talk to him about the role and how to get qualified, which he duly did with ‘flying colours.’ Having become a DO, Buchanan’s attention soon turned to career progression and practice ownership.
‘I thought owning a practice as a DO would be difficult because I would have always been relying on someone else for the core of the business. I thought to myself, “I need to become an optometrist,” so that’s what I went to university and did,’ he says. If this sounds like a leap, it is worth considering that Buchanan admits to having a passion for being the best he can possibly be, regardless of what he undertakes.
It was while Buchanan was reading optometry that his parents found a long-since forgotten school career profiling form while they were clearing the loft. Spookily, his career advisor’s list of recommended careers was medicine and optometry.
He started his career with locum roles for independents and multiples, but says he never got the amount of time he liked to spend with patients while working for the latter. However, the grass was not that much greener on the other side with the independents, that were often using old equipment. ‘It wasn’t what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be, so I started looking at practices for sale.’
It was in 1999, that Patrick Myers of Myers La Roche, contacted Buchanan about a house practice for sale in Snodland, Kent. When Buchanan went to visit the practice what he saw shocked him. ‘The owner didn’t know how many active patients he had and the records were a real mess,’ he says.
Buchanan walked away but was later encouraged to make an offer, which he duly did. A ‘silly’ one. The offer was accepted and the deal was quickly closed, as the departing owner informed Buchanan of his decision to retire just two days later. The early days were fraught. He got an electric shock from a visual fields machine and he inherited a receptionist that would only fill in NHS forms on a typewriter.
A move to a new building was the moment is which Buchanan made a commitment to continued investment in the very best in ophthalmic technology, caring more than anyone else and diagnosing eye conditions as early as possible. An initial investment of £220,000 was money that he did not have, but took the risk on spending years paying it off.
Buchanan Optometrists has been a serial Optician Awards winner for its technology, software use and independence, but Buchanan says it was the Optometrist of the Year award that he coveted most.
Optometrist of the year 2017
Winner: Alisdair Buchanan, Buchanan Optometrists
Shortlisted
Dr Rohit Narayan, Anstee & Proctor
Pretty Basra, Edwards and Walker Opticians
Nick Wingate, The Outside Clinic
Ruth Perrott, VisionCare Optometry
Joanna Williams, Wardale Williams, Sudbury